Blanck Mass is back with another unsettling video!
(That’s not a surprise. Blanck Mass kinda specializes in being unsettling.)
This video, which features a retro tv studio going crazy over some sexy apples, feels like a bit of an homage to the early work of David Cronenberg. Keep your eyes open and you’ll even spot a paperback novelization of Videodrome. And, of course, just the idea of loving being a parasite is a very Cronenbergian concept.
Enjoy!
Yep, it’s another day, another rock show for your Cracked Rear Viewer. Tonight I’m heading down to New Bedford’s 105th annual Feast of the Blessed Sacrament (better known to us locals as The Portuguese Feast!). Tonight’s musical headliner will be none other than Scott Stapp, former lead singer of Creed, so I thought I’d share this cool video of their big hit from 2000, “With Arms Wide Open”, directed by Dave Meyers (who also directed the 2007 horror movie THE HITCHER):
Have a good night, and I’ll see you Saturday. Keep Calm and Feast On!
This is one of two music videos for Miike Snow’s Animal. I prefer this one because it features some moody shots of the band standing in the rain and the whole thing has a sort of end of the world, apocalyptic feel to it. The song itself has been interpreted to be about everything from addiction to ennui to the furry sub-culture. The band has been said quoted as saying that maybe we shouldn’t try to read too much into the song.
(For the record, I have never gotten the whole “furry” thing, nor have I really had any desire to understand it. I mean, to be honest, it just seems stupid. Unfortunately, I once took a creative writing class where one of my classmates was absolutely obsessed with furries and he even wrote a play about some sort of sex-obsessed space bear. And, of course, the presidential campaign of Beto O’Rourke has put furries back in the headlines.)
Miike Snow is made up of lead singer Andrew Wyatt and Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg. Karlsson and Winberg previously produced Toxic for Britney Spears. When Animal was first released as a single, there was a lot of online speculation that the band was named after director Takashi Miike but, sadly, that turned out to be false. Apparently, the band actually is named after someone named Mike Snow. The band added an extra i because …. well, just because they felt like doing it.
More power to them, say I!
Enjoy!
Bang bang bang bang….
Here to get your week off to a good start, straight from the city of Detroit, it’s …. Crud!
Seriously, this is a fun song to listen too whenever you’re stuck in Monday morning traffic.
Enjoy!
Today’s music video of the day comes from the Baltimore-born rapper and producer, Sagat.
There’s actually two versions of this song. The first one, which was released in 1993 and which is still played in the clubs on The Block to this day, was called Fuk Dat and was a list of things that annoyed Sagat in ’93 and which are still annoying today. That version became a club hit but, when it was time to release the song commercially, it was obvious that the song would need a title that wouldn’t get radio stations fined by the FCC. Hence, Fuk Dat became the slightly cleaner Funk Dat.
The music video for Funk Dat was filmed on the streets of New York. The video features not only Sagat but also a really cool kid who has it up to here with the radio playing the same five songs over and over again. This video achieved perhaps its greatest exposure when it was featured on an episode of Beavis and Butthead. This song was also played on one of MTV’s dance shows on the 90s. The dancers would all shout, “Funk dat!” in unison but everyone knew what the song was actually saying.
Enjoy!
Yesterday was the 76th birthday of Sir Michael Phillip Jagger so it seems appropriate to give him today’s music video of the day slot. Visions of Paradise was the first video off of Mick Jagger’s fourth solo album, Goddess in the Doorway.
This video was directed by Dave Meyers, who is one of those music video directors who seems to have worked with everyone. If you look over the list of videos he’s directed, you’ll see everyone from Master P to Kid Rock to Pink and Taylor Swift.
Enjoy and keep rocking, Sir Mick!
After several months hiatus, I am back just in time to see the latest San Diego Comic-Con arrive and pass by with the latest in comic book-related news whether in print, video games or tv and films. One surprise news which dropped during Marvel Studio’s popular Hall H panel this past Saturday was the surprise announcement that the character of Blade has been recast. He will be getting his own film for the ever-growing juggernaut that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
While rumors in the past had Wesley Snipes (the original actor who played the character Blade in a trilogy of films) in meetings with Marvel Studios, it would seem that Kevin Feige and his casting crew decided on a new face to reprise the role of the Daywalker. Out is Wesley Snipes and in comes two-time Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali (Moonlight, The Green Book).
Thus with that announcement the character of Blade has returned to the forefront of pop culture. One thing that the trilogy of films had that impressed me as a fan was the eclectic batch of licensed music that was a mixture of techno, rock and hip-hop. I’ve already featured one song from the Blade II soundtrack (“I Against I” by Massive Attack ft. Mos Def).
So, it’s no surprise that the latest Song of the Day comes from the very same soundtrack and this time it’s a collaboration from hip-hop gurus The Roots and techno legend BT.
The Whispers were first formed 1964 but they had to wait 16 years before scoring the first top 20 hit in both the U.S. and the UK with And The Beat Goes On. This song was co-written by Leon F. Sylvers III, Stephen Shockley, and William Shelby. Sylvers felt that the song had little potential to be a hit. The Whisperers felt differently and they turned out to be correct.
As befits an old school song, this is an old school video, a simple performance clip of the band doing what they did best.
And The Beat Goes On is another song that I have fond memories of listening to while stealing cars in Vice City. If you haven’t been chased by a police helicopter while listening to And The Beat Goes On then what were you doing back in 2002?
Enjoy!
Believe it or not, this song was inspired by a leaking roof.
One a rainy day, George Harrison discovered that the roof of his Friar Park home had a leak. Harrison said that while watching the rain water leak through the roof, he realized that by surrendering to the problem and declining to make the effort to fix it, he was merely making the problem worse and this led Harrison to the realization that he “loved everyone.” (That’s really a classic George Harrison story, isn’t it?) Those feelings inspired Harrison to write this song, which went on to be the lead single off of his 1979 album, George Harrison. I assume that he also fixed the roof though I have no way to be sure.
This video was directed by Neil Innes. If that name sounds familiar, it’s probably because of the work that he did with Monty Python and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Interestingly, Innes was also a member of the Rutles, a pastiche of the Beatles in which Innes played lead singer Ron Nasty. More recently, Innes was a member of the brilliantly named Idiot Bastard Band. This video is a good mix of Innes’s sense of humor and Harrison’s spiritual nature.
Enjoy!
Though he had his occasional hits, Cliff Richard has never made a huge impact in the States. However, in the UK, Cliff Richard is practically an institution. He’s been performing for 60 years straight and has had 14 number one singles in the UK. He’s also the only singer to have had a number one single in five consecutive decades. Before there was the Beatles, there was Cliff Richard.
We Don’t Talk Anymore was Richard’s biggest worldwide hit and it was released during one of his brief periods of American popularity. The video is simple as most music videos were back in the day. Today, music videos are usually mini-movies but, back in the 70s and 80s, they were often just performance clips. This video was the sixth to be played on MTV, airing in between Ph.D’s Little Suzi’s On The Up and The Pretenders’s Brass In Pocket.
As for Cliff Richard, he’s Sir Cliff and he’s still performing. Every December brings a new Christmas song from Sir Cliff Richard.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens